Christmas 2009 aka My First Christmas In 16 Years Without TJ

TJ and I quit exchanging Christmas presents years ago so my Christmas morning started out quite normal....with the dogs opening their Christmas presents.



I then went to a friend's home for a wonderful prime rib Christmas dinner. The food was great but the conversation among friends was even better.

Even my friend's dog, Tank, found the treats to be almost irresistible. He is a very well behaved guy so he managed to restrain himself.

Poor little Skeeter, unlike Tank, has to be picked up to get a sneak peek at the fantastic food. I really think he is asking for just a little bite in this picture.

All in all it was a great day and really made me feel blessed to have such wonderful and caring friends. Another "first" behind me and without much struggle at all. Having said that though, I really missed TJ on Christmas and all day long I had memories of the times we spent Christmas down at "The Shack" or "Love Shack" as TJ preferred to call it. Those were the most special of times and really the best times I had at Christmas ever and I don't think another Christmas could hold a candle to waking up in the shack with TJ by my side ready to spend an entire day together.....just him and I....and how we so loved each other's company.

Merry Christmas TJ !

I Thought It Would Be A Difficult Night For Me

Wrong!!!! My sister and her friend sprung Mom from the nursing home and brought her to my house for Christmas Eve dinner. My family has never been big on family get togethers on any holiday and we never had big Christmas celebrations. Tonight reminded me of why.

Mom has been in a nursing home for over 3 years now and is really going downhill in her health. She is having a much more difficult time transferring from her wheelchair and now seems very out of touch with reality.

Tonight during dinner she made a very nasty comment to my sister. I can blow these things off and attribute it to old age but it made my sister livid. As I looked across the table at my sister (who I know very well and am very close to) I could see the string of curse words forming in her head. I immediately said "no...stop it", her friend said "it is Christmas!" My sister scaled back her rebuttal but still told Mom how she felt. I am just glad that it was scaled back although I don't even think Mom realised what my sister had just said to her.

All families argue and are different. TJ's family was totally fake nice to your face and stabbed you in the back as soon as you walked out the front door, my family lets you know how they feel up front and sometimes it isn't pretty. Holidays with his family were just miserable but I suppose it would be miserable for an outsider to spend a holiday with my family. TJ and I usually tried to leave town at Christmas so we didn't have to be with either family and could just be alone at our property down south.

I thought tonight would be a difficult night for me but after that exchange at dinner I am fine....I am grateful for the peace and quiet.....kinda like what TJ and I would have on Christmas eve at the property. Tomorrow I will be spending the day with friends, my sister will be spending her day with friends also and Mom will be back in her safety zone, it should be a good day for everyone.

LIFE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT TO BE WONDERFUL!

Friends & The Yard Sale

Yard Sale time finally arrived!! I invited my grilfriends over on Thursday night to help me price & organize for the sale. Well.....after a little too much wine we just had to experiment with the Nordic Track that Debbie brought over to sell. That turned out to provide some good laughs and thankfully none of us got hurt!

If you have never tried a Nordic Track I advise against it. Unless, of course, you are extremely coordinated. Regardless of the Nordic Track fun we managed to get everything priced and ready to go for the next morning. I stayed up too late on Thursday night and drank a wee bit too much wine but was still able to get the sale going at daybreak with help from my friend Debbie. We had a good sale day today and are doing it again tomorrow. Although, tomorrow the morning should be quite a bit easier on both of us.

Hopefully we will have nothing left at the end of the day tomorrow.

Does This Belong In The House Or In The Garage?

I haven't felt up to par all week so I decided to just take it easy tonight and repaint my nails. First thing I have to do is remove the old polish from my nails. I use acetone for this and this is how my journey through TJ memories began tonight.

Acetone (among other things) was a constant sharing between TJ and I. When he would run out of acetone in the garage he would come get mine out of the bathroom. Next time I needed it I would be in the garage looking for his!! The dremel tool was the other thing that he kept taking out in the garage. I use it to remove the last little bit of soaked off nails when I am getting a new set and lo and behold... every time I needed my darn dremel tool it would be missing and sure enough I would find it in the garage. Nail files too....Yes, nail files! He used them to sand in tight places on his car, I used them for the intended purpose. Often when I was making a run to the beauty supply store he would ask me to pick him up a few of the really coarse nail files. So, when I would run out I was always out in the garage borrowing nail files from him. I could go on and on about things that we used interchangeably between the garage and house but I am sure you get the idea.

Tonight though, I found the acetone in the garage, my dremel tool was in the bathroom and there was a brand new, never used nail file in the garage!! Made me smile just thinking of TJ and how he was always draggin stuff out into the garage only to have me dragging it back into the house to use.

We shared everything, our love for our friends, our love for our animals and our love for each other. I miss him.

Blogging Family / Community

It has been a rough year for me as you all know. When I began my blog it was a simple way to keep everyone informed of how TJ's treatment was progressing. It has served that purpose and more!!

I had no idea of how I would become part of a community that would come to be so important to me. I had no idea of the friendships I would develop with people from all over the world. I had no idea that I would wake up on a Saturday morning and find that one of those friends had dedicated a blog post to me! I am grateful to be a part of this community and thankful for the special friendships that have developed.

Please check out JarieLyn's post that she did just for me. Jarielyn is one of many that has been a faithful follower, has left the most wonderful encouraging comments and has become a friend through blogging. She only lives about 8 hours away so I am sure down the road there will be a visit in person! Thank you JarieLyn!

Oh yeah, the name of her blog is awesome too ..... Write Place! Write Chick!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

I Don't Know Which Is Worse

Two days ago I received a Christmas card in the mail that was addressed to TJ & Sandy Webb. OK, obviously this is someone who knows that TJ & I got married but doesn't know that TJ is gone. Turned out to be from friends of ours that I obviously forgot to call when TJ died, so now I feel really bad that they don't know and I can't find their phone number. Guess I should just stop by their house and let them know what has happened with TJ. Funny though how it affected me to see a Christmas card addressed to both TJ & I, yet I have been seeing that for years.

Today I received a Christmas card in the mail addressed to just me. Just me....no TJ....had they forgotten TJ?!?! How weird does this look!!!! Neither TJ nor I have received individual cards for years, they always came addressed to both of us! This was obviously from someone who knows what is going on but nonetheless it was still my first individual Christmas card and just seemed very odd to me.

I am glad to have this obstacle behind me. I always wonder when the next one is going to pop up and what it will be. I don't blog about all of them but believe me there are lots of "firsts" and each and every one causes me to pause ... take a step back ... take a deep breath ... then... TAKE TWO STEPS FORWARD. Gotta compensate for that step back that I took!!

Mondays Are Never Good

Not a good way to start the week. This truck belongs to my boss and both he and his passenger walked away. I really think they are both pretty lucky especially the way that roof was smashed in.

Rainy and cold today so when I got home from work I did some administrative stuff. Called our lawyer for an appointment, completed some TJ paperwork and finally made my appointments to follow up with the lumps they found in my breast back in the beginning of September. I am glad TJ set things up the way he did to protect me from the crazies but the darn paperwork is extensive, although probably less hassle than if he had not done what he did so I guess I should not snivel.

Those of you that are regular readers know about my breast issues and because of TJ starting to go downhill at that time I was never able to follow up like I should have. Mentally I think I am more able to handle this now than I was then so it is just as well. Back then I was so afraid of being sick and not able to care for TJ. TJ was afraid he wasn't going to be around to take care of me. The whole thought of it stressed us both out!! Here he was going downhill fast and he was still bothering me to go get the MRI that the breast surgeon wanted me to get. I was finally able to convince him that the MRI could wait and our focus needed to be on keeping him comfortable.

Watching the weather...was planning my garage sale this week but might push it off for a week because of the crummy weather. We will see.

Fantastic Weekend !!!!!

I had an especially good weekend. I have been so wrapped up in getting ready for the yard sale that my weekends have been consumed with going through the garage and house and keeping to the strict schedule I put myself on. Well......I basically took this weekend off.

Like I had mentioned in my previous post, my sister and I had plans to bake on Saturday. Every year in the past I have always baked for TJ's sake. He loved all that candy, cookies, etc. that I made. This year I wasn't going to bake since he is no longer here for me to bake for. I am glad though that my sister changed my mind. We had a fabulous time together on Saturday. So many of the things we baked reminded me of TJ and how much he loved his sweets, especially chocolate. What is even better though is that now when I think of him I smile instead of cry. My memories are more of the good times and things we did together and not how sick and in horrible pain he was before he died. I feel really good about moving on and being able to smile when I think of TJ instead of being in misery.

Back to the baking, I ended up doing some of it on Friday night and since in the past I have always baked by myself I really enjoyed it. Then my sister and I baked from 9:30 to about 2:30 on Saturday and it was great quality time with her. We got to do lots of talking about TJ and just other sister stuff.

Saturday night I visited with some friends and had a good chat about miscellaneous stuff. Today it was really cold outside so instead of working in the garage I just goofed off in the house. I accomplished some stuff but was in no hurry to do anything and it was nice.

I am ending my weekend curled up on the couch with my laptop getting caught up on reading blogs......it doesn't get any better than that for sure!!!

LIFE IS GOOD TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!!

FlyingWG Christmas

Here is the FlyingWG that some of you have asked about. The "W" stands for TJ's last name and the "G" stood for my last name before we were married. When we got married I changed my name per TJ's request. FlyingWG is a registered brand in the state of Arizona so down the road I can use it should I choose to. My sister took this picture the night we celebrated TJ's life. What a beautiful sunset we had that night. Did someone have something to do with that? Well, depending on your beliefs maybe or maybe not but either way we had a beautiful evening to celebrate his life.

I am not much of a Christmas person and often times I did not even decorate for Christmas. This year though I decided to decorate and I made this decision for 2 reasons.....#1 was simply because I am planning a yard sale soon and wanted to go through all my Christmas stuff and put in the yard sale what I no longer wanted but most importantly #2 was because I didn't want my friends and family to think I was too depressed to decorate for Christmas and start feeling sorry for me. I know how people are and I could just hear the talk behind my back...."she didn't even put up a Christmas tree...how sad...she must really be having a rough Christmas season....etc." So, once again, I remind all of you that I am fine!! Yes, I have moments but they are just that and pass very quickly. Mostly it seems to be music that gets to me, which means that moments happen in my truck on my way to or from work. The song you are listening to now (how many of you are turning on your speakers now??...LOL) is one that hit me kinda hard the other day but of course it passed just as quickly as it hit me.

Right now I am looking forward to doing Christmas baking with my sister on Saturday. She moved to Arizona the end of September and my life has been crazy since she has been here and we haven't had much of a chance to spend time together so it should be fun.